As a business owner or manager you may think that you have a million things to do that are more important and useful than creating and maintaining job descriptions for your employees. Surely your resources would be much better spent on sales and other pressing tasks, and not on writing a document that has limited use? Show
You could not be further from the truth: Clear job descriptions that are regularly reviewed and updated are essential to the success of any business. What is a job description?Before we look at why no business should be without a written job description for each and every role, let’s find out what a job description is. Broadly speaking, a job or position description is a written statement describing the purpose or objective of a job, a list of tasks performed by the job holder, and a description of how, and under what conditions, they perform the job. What are the benefits of a job description?Essentially, a detailed, up-to-date job description benefits the employer, the employee and the business by providing structure and clarity in the following ways:
What should a job description include?A good job description should contain most of the following information:
The Proven Group can create job descriptions for your businessWe have seen that one of the most important sets of documents that a business can have is a current and clearly expressed set of job descriptions. Does every one of your employees have one? The team at The Proven Group, a recruitment agency in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Ballarat, Geelong and in other areas throughout regional Victoria, have extensive experience in this and every other aspect of recruitment. We work with you to determine the roles and responsibilities for each of your staff members. We then conduct a preliminary interview with them to create a position description that reflects all aspects of their job. Engaging them in this way will result in a living and working document that has been created by them. The last thing you want to hear as a manager is, ‘I’m not doing that as it’s not in my job description.’ If you’d like help with this or any part of the recruitment process, feel free to get in touch for a confidential and no-obligation discussion. For most organizations, getting your existing employees to fit into a specific role can be a tough task, especially when the employee isn’t happy with their current position. It’s often the result assigning someone based on skills rather than the job itself. Typically, organizations looking to find someone for a position tend to look for specific skill sets in people so they can divide the work load and fill up the position. Alternatively, developing job roles for any position helps find the right person based on the needs and requirements of that position. In this article, we’ll go over why job roles matter, why it’s important to update job descriptions regularly, and how the concept of employee skills comes in between. Let’s dive right in. What Exactly Are Job Roles?The term job role is often used interchangeably with the terms job title and job description. They may be technically different, but they all point to the same thing – everything to do with a certain job position. There are a lot of things that affect job roles, and there are a lot of things that are affected due to job roles. The following factors can accurately summarize what job roles are and what impacts them in an organization.
Other things that impact job roles may include the employee rosters, ADA accommodations, and company policies. Job Roles Vs. Skill EconomyIn recent times, many organizations have floated and backed the idea of a skill economy. What that means is that they consider the skills required for a role to be the number one factor when filling out a position. In that case, a digital marketer who can code effectively may be given a coding job. Therefore, the skills each person and employee has, determine whether or not they should get a specific job. While it’s true that if someone has the skills for something, they would be able to do it effectively, it’s not necessarily true that they’d be a good fit for a specific position. Many organizations have adopted a methodology where only the skills of their employees matter. However, assigning someone to various positions based solely on their skills isn’t the best strategy. It may lead to some great work in the short run, but eventually, it would start to become less efficient. There may be many reasons why that can happen. For example, just because a person has a specific skill doesn’t mean they want to develop their career with it. You may hire someone for the short run, but if all your hires eventually change or leave their posts, you never truly have someone dedicated to that specific succession path. Eventually, you’ll always have to hire someone from scratch, develop loyalty, and work harder to retain good people. Similarly, there’s also a good chance that the employee doesn’t understand the performance goals associated with the skills they have. If you manage to change an employee’s job position too many times based on their skills, there’s a good chance that the employee will burn out and not be able to work with full potential. Why Job Roles Work BetterAs opposed to a skill economy, job roles offer a framework for skills, competencies, and the proficiency levels of any employee that help estimate their capability to perform in that role. Just having a skill means you understand how to do something, the concept behind it, and how to derive positive results. That leaves a lot of room for change. The job role defines one’s competency to take that skill and put it to use in different cases. The level of proficiency provides a base or foundation that determines the level of skills based on the competency. Here’s a deeper look into the three components of a job role.
When you combine the skills, competencies, and level of proficiency needed, you can effectively fill a role with someone who fits a position accurately. For example, typically, you’ll see a job post for a Java developer that asks for skills in Java, project management, and good written communication. However, you’ll hire better when you consider that you need a distinguished Java developer with advanced project management and communication skills. Developing Better Job Roles through Better Job DescriptionsAs a company, you can’t rely on one job description for all your positions. When you opt to assign specific job roles to each position, you have to update your job descriptions too. As a result, it’s a good practice to consistently modify and edit your job descriptions to reflect any changes in the job roles. Eventually, it will help you develop employees that are more inclined to fit in the job role and with your company. At the same time, it offers a chance to address any issues that may have arisen in the past with the same job position. Furthermore, it also offers a chance to solve issues and problems with existing talent. You never know, an employee may do better in another position in the company, provided you can lay down the entire job role, career path, and internal mobility opportunities to them. To understand this, you have to make sure that the role includes the competencies and proficiency levels for each skill. Better Employee Experience with Complete Job RolesThe concept of job roles is not only beneficial to the organization but also to the employees. It helps them understand their position better, helps them understand potential career paths, and helps them understand how they can upskill, or reskill to fit a different role. Eventually, that leads to increased retention and company loyalty, thus improving productivity and motivation. It is clear that job roles matter for many reasons and understanding the benefits of their use is a start to a stronger talent strategy. If you are rethinking the way you manage your people, it’s important to think about how roles fit in and support your long-term execution of your plan. To learn more, take a look at a few of these helpful webinars: Transforming Verified Skills into Verified Success The Business Risk of Unverified Skills Data How to Build an Adaptive AI-Assisted Career Architecture Ready to see job roles in action? Request a demo of our Competency Management software. Why is it important for employees to ensure their job descriptions match their current job duties?Besides attracting top candidates to your organization, job descriptions can benefit your team and make your life in HR easier in many ways. Specifically, job descriptions are helpful because they: Provide a clear understanding of what the duties and responsibilities for a particular position are.
Why are job descriptions important for employees?Job descriptions can help identify particular skills or abilities that are necessary for a position or the environmental pressures that apply to the position. A good job description tells the applicant what the position may involve or require.
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